Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-30-Speech-3-007"
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"en.20051130.3.3-007"2
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"Before continuing with our agenda, I must make two statements relating to topical issues which require Parliament’s attention.
In addition to its global magnitude, the problem with AIDS is the inequality it reflects.
We, the industrialised countries, have the capacity to provide assistance, for prevention, and to carry out research into more and better vaccines, but the majority of the world does not have that capacity nor any means of defence, particularly in Africa, to deal with the spread of the epidemic.
Sub-Saharan Africa is paying a very high price. 26 million people are infected there. 60% of carriers of the virus come from among 10% of the world population, and of them just 7% have access to healthcare. These are horrendous, dramatic and brutal figures, which illustrate the extent to which this disease is the result of the world’s inequality.
The epidemic is spreading in parallel with malnutrition and the food crisis. Without proper nutrition, nothing can prevent the spread of AIDS nor cure the people carrying the disease.
We must therefore do more in terms of prevention, information, understanding and treatment. Because today AIDS is simply a reflection of exclusion: exclusion as a result of an irrational fear of contracting the disease; exclusion as a result of certain kinds of behaviour being condemned in the name of religious principles; exclusion as a result of rejection and isolation in the family and in the workplace. And we must also combat all of this on a daily basis.
I would therefore like, on behalf of the European Parliament, to thank the millions of volunteers throughout the world who are working to eradicate this plague.
Tomorrow, this Parliament will mobilise itself by means of an information campaign and a meeting of its Committee on Development, which will hold a debate with carriers of the virus and agents working on the ground.
I believe that we must all be aware of the scale of the drama and of the political effort necessary to deal with it.
The first concerns the kidnaps in Iraq, which are still taking place continuously and which over recent days have involved five western citizens, which raises the number of foreigners currently held or classified as disappeared to forty. Of course, the number of Iraqis is much greater: of their population one hundred are now being held.
The latest hostages include two of our fellow citizens: the German, Susanne Osthoff, a renowned archaeologist, who has been integrated into Iraqi society for ten years — and is not therefore a person who can in any way be linked to military operations — and who, since the beginning of the war, has been entirely committed to helping the Iraqi people. Despite that, she has been kidnapped.
Furthermore, the British man, Norman Kember, a member of a Canadian NGO, has been kidnapped together with three other humanitarian workers — two Canadians and an American. Extremely intense efforts are being made in their respective countries, Germany and the United Kingdom, to secure their release, and I believe that we in the European Parliament must support those efforts in every possible way and take part actively in this campaign, and we should start by insisting that nothing can ever justify such barbarous acts.
The other statement relates to a much more global problem, because it affects not just two or forty people, but millions of human beings: tomorrow, 1 December, is World Aids Day. I believe that the European Parliament must make every possible effort and exert its political influence in relation to this problem. Because, although great efforts are being made, they are insufficient. And we must be aware, and make the European citizens aware, that the pandemic is still progressing at an ominous pace, despite the efforts of the entire world.
It was calculated in 2001 that 35 million people were infected with AIDS. Now, four years later, the figure has risen to 41 million. Half of them are women and two and a half million are children under 15.
During this year it has been calculated that five million more people have been infected. The pandemic is therefore spreading at a rhythm equivalent to 10% of accumulated stock. This is quite simply an exponential rate of growth.
During this year, three million people will have died from AIDS, 500 000 of whom will be children."@en1
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